


God's Perfect Idiots

by Goldmonger



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Church of Humanity, Comic-Verse influence, Friendship, Gen, I love these nerds, Post-Movie(s), Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 15:36:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7393285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldmonger/pseuds/Goldmonger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mansion is attacked by a religious sect that hates mutants. Kurt Wagner is annoyed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	God's Perfect Idiots

The thing about saving the world, Kurt thought, was that it was always going to be an imperfect job. You could prevent the deaths of billions, but at the cost of ten thousand others. You could protect a city, but not the villages within the twenty mile radius blast zone. And you could stop one species from wiping out another, but the enmity would never really go away.

_“KILL ALL MUTANTS!”_

_“GOD HATES MUTANTS!”_

_“GO BACK TO HELL, SCUM!”_

“They’ve been out there for hours now,” said Scott, his arms folded tightly across his chest. “I’m telling you, we need to call the Professor.”

“No,” said Jubilee sharply, waving her hand disparagingly in his general direction. “If we make him and Mystique come back now they’ll never let us have the mansion to ourselves again. I say we wait them out.”

“Where are they gone, anyway?”

“Doing something dodgy with Magneto. I’ve learned not to ask.”

“They are getting kind of restless,” murmured Jean, who was closest to the window, tweaking the curtain to peer outside. “And I’m still shot from yesterday’s training. I can’t order them all to leave.”

“Don’t try anything like that,” said Storm immediately. “They know Xavier lives here, they’re looking for him. If they get so much as a whiff of a telepath – God knows what they’ll do.”

They all exchanged apprehensive looks. “Are they armed?” asked Scott.

“They’re religious nuts with a violent agenda. I wouldn’t put it past them.”

They paused for a moment to watch the mob on the front lawn of the school mill about, toting signboards and hoisting banners emblazoned with mutant slurs and Pro-Human propaganda. They had already defaced the fountain centrepiece with graffiti, spraying crude messages and caricatures of mutants being hanged. Kurt wondered if he should be worried most of the nasty cartoons had forked tails and exaggerated fangs. He’d been treated like the genuine incarnation of Satan himself many times, but this group of people hadn’t even met him yet and already they seemed to want him dead.

“It’s only us here,” said Jubilee easily. “All the kids are either on that field trip with Hank and Peter or home for summer. These fools will get bored when nobody comes out, just wait.”

Jean and Storm gave each other meaningful looks but didn’t say anything, resuming their clandestine watch over the front yard. Kurt slunk back from the window to sit on one of the desks pushed against the wall, stored out of the way since they weren’t being used. After a minute or so, Scott came to join him.

“You all right?”

Kurt nodded wordlessly. He didn’t want to openly doubt Jubilee, who did have the best ideas and the most resourcefulness out of all of them. She was also probably the only one of them besides Peter who could operate under severe pressure without cracking. So far, anyway. She hadn’t been in the Danger Room yet, to be fair.

“Well, don’t worry,” reassured Scott, his arms still locked across his body like he was afraid he’d come apart if he didn’t. “This is just people being stupid. It’ll die down.”

“Maybe,” said Kurt quietly. Scott’s mirrored lenses gave him a questioning look, and he appraised his three-fingered hands with more interest than they strictly warranted. He’d avoided talking much about the darker parts of his circus past since coming to the mansion, and he didn’t intend to start spilling his guts too thoroughly. Still. This was Scott, and he was scared too. This – being on the receiving end of such vitriolic hate for his identity – was probably entirely new to him.

“When I was with the Szardos Brothers in Munich, I pretended to be wearing makeup when I would perform,” said Kurt uncomfortably. Scott was listening intently, frowning, so he continued. “When they discovered this was my real skin, and my tail wasn’t just a fancy wire, they tried to boycott my act. After Mystique came out on the TV, children would throw stones at me during the show, and their parents would call news stations nearby, trying to rally people to kick me out. They said I was an abomination.” Kurt shifted his weight on the desk, hunching forward a little more. “It died down after a while. Ticket sales were good while people came to see me, to see what the fuss was all about, but then they got bored.” He smiled ruefully. “That was the only time the boss got mad at me. Told me I should’ve played up the ‘savage mutant’ card to keep the interest going.”

Kurt scrubbed at his eyes absently, feeling very tired all of a sudden. Scott had scooted a little closer.

“I don’t know what to say,” he muttered. “That’s awful. You must’ve been what – seven?” Kurt made a noise of assent and Scott swore under his breath.

“I was playing Little League while you were fending off hate crimes. That’s heavy, man.”

“It wasn’t all bad,” said Kurt, shrugging. “I got all the leftover candy floss I wanted.”

Scott looked at him incredulously, and shook his head at Kurt’s wry grin. “Yeah, you’re right, totally fair trade. Copious amounts of sugar for traumatic childhood memories. Hey, you turned out all right.”

Kurt felt like he’d grown half a foot. “I did?”

“I feel like we’ve corrupted you with our sarcasm, but yeah,” snorted Scott. “You’re okay.”

“Guys?” Jubilee beckoned them over. “Guys, I think they’ve leaving.”

Kurt and Scott hopped off the desks and watched with the others as the mob started to make a queue out the gate. A few kids their own age were still throwing eggs at the front of the school, but fell back into the group at the curt call of their parents.

“ _Gott sei Dank_ ,” said Kurt in undertones, but Jean caught it anyway and smiled at him wearily.

“Can we go back to watching Rocky Horror now?” said Scott, and held up a finger when Storm opened her mouth to retort. “I know I said it was stupid and camp, but this little incident makes anything else look appealing. Come on. Jubilee, I call shotgun.”

“You can’t call shotgun on a couch – where did he go.”

Jubilee neatly wove between Jean and Kurt to follow Scott out into the hall and down the stairs at a sprint, yelling about keeping her seat in the armchair. Jean rolled her eyes and took off after them, presumably to prevent any bloodshed. Or a spectacular light show.

“Back to normal,” said Storm dryly, but squeezed Kurt’s arm as she brushed past to join the others. Kurt stayed for a while, and watched the Anti-Mutant protesters drift down the driveway like a herd of cattle. Faces turned back infrequently, but they were filled with sheer hatred – enough to make Kurt’s insides go cold. Abandoned signs littered the churned gravel outside the front door, and the fountain now boasted the slogan: ‘MAKE AMERICA HUMAN AGAIN’ in scarlet paint.

Kurt waited until the last protester had traipsed off the property before going downstairs, and no-one asked him what had taken him so long. Jubilee did throw her blanket over his legs, and Scott offered him popcorn immediately after he sat down. They watched the rest of the musical hijinks in silence, pressed together unusually close.

 

*

 

There were five ingredients to hot chocolate, according to Jean, and seven if you wanted to be fancy. Kurt swilled chocolate powder and milk together in a saucepan and tried not to look too judgemental. Jean fixed him with a withering gaze and set the cinnamon and whipped cream back down, her hands on her hips.

“What?” he said anxiously, his tail swishing.

“It might be heinously indulgent, Kurt, but that’s life in a millionaire’s mansion for you.” She winced. “I didn’t mean to make us sound like playboy bunnies. But my point stands.” She resumed meting out dollops of cream into steaming mugs, sweeping back her flaming hair rather impatiently. Kurt was left to consider what exactly about their living situation made them comparable to rabbits.

They probably didn’t need a crockpot’s worth of hot chocolate between the two of them, but activity was good for a troubled mind – or at least Jean had claimed. It had been an hour since he’d risen from a tumultuous nightmare and trudged down to the kitchen to find Jean baking cookies, her eyes bruised with lack of sleep. They’d kept each other busy by conjuring up their own patisserie and firmly not discussing the dreams that had driven them from their beds.

It made Kurt sad to think of how many nights Jean awoke, paralysed in fear and unsure of what was real. All of them had suffered night terrors in the aftermath of Apocalypse, but she was the only one whose mind seemed to be permanently disturbed. Not that he blamed her. Taking down a mutant like that was hardly a casual errand, and Jean hadn’t been the same since. Jubilee had called it ‘powered down’, like Jean had depleted some reservoir; but Kurt had seen the way Jean manoeuvred herself around them, how tentative she was even in the Danger Room – like she was walking over a rope bridge on ice skates. Full of dread, afraid of herself and what she could do. He wanted to help, but he didn’t know how. Perhaps it was a task for the Professor. Xavier seemed to empathise with Jean in an intimate way when it came to her abilities, and she with him. Shared fear, maybe.

“You want to make cupcakes? I just saw a recipe in here – red velvet cupcakes. That’s to die for.” Jean poked the cookbook splayed out on the counter with a finger dusted in sugar. Kurt pursed his lips and dwelled on it for a moment.

“I’m hiding them from Storm.”

“Deal. She can have the cookies, we’ll pretend that’s all we made.”

Kurt finished stirring the hot chocolate and poured it into the empty mugs, Jean topping them off with an absurd amount of mini-marshmallows. “They’re mini,” she said defensively.

They were licking sticky marshmallow goo off teaspoons when Kurt heard a click, and set down his mug, the hair on the back of his neck standing up.

“Jean,” he said. “What was that?”

“What was what?” she asked, and a gunshot sounded behind him at the same time red bloomed on her chest. He was frozen as she fell backwards, slamming her head against an open cabinet and collapsing in a heap.

Kurt moved without thinking, diving forwards as more shots sounded above him, pocking the cupboards overhead with ragged holes. He disappeared with Jean into a vacuum and reappeared in his and Scott’s room, caught off guard by the sudden darkness. He blinked, momentarily blinded as the light flicked on and someone to his left cursed. He looked up and saw Scott in a t-shirt and boxers, his hair sticking in every direction and his eyes squeezed shut while he fumbled with his sunglasses. Kurt didn’t wait – he hauled Jean over his shoulder and strode forwards, grabbing Scott’s arm and disappearing again.

Shots were still going off, and this time voices were bleeding through the floor, footsteps thundering up the stairs. Jubilee was waiting for them with the lights off, her eyes wide as she took Kurt’s outstretched hand. Storm, thankfully, was another storey up, and waiting in the hallway with a baseball bat. All three of them had to hiss her name from inside her room, and she darted in and grasped Kurt’s shoulder without a word, casting frightened looks at Jean’s prone body. Kurt concentrated, white spots bursting behind his eyes – he’d been practising transporting up to five people at a time, and had just got to a point where he no longer passed out. Distance was an unforeseen factor now. He needed to get much further away this time, if the whoops and engines sounding from outside the mansion were anything to go by. Where was safe?

Jubilee was tugging on his hand, and Scott’ muscles were tensing under his tail, wound around his arm. The shouts and yelling were getting louder, and wetness stuck his shirt to his back from where Jean was slumped, and he was out of time. He sent a quick prayer to the Lord for guidance, and vanished into nothingness with his friends by his side.

 

*

 

“Kurt. C’mon big guy.”

“Is he up?”

“No. Thought his eye moved there for a second, is all.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Shouldn’t swear,” moaned Kurt, feeling as though he was moving through jelly. Someone had pillowed a jacket under his head, but it still hurt, and seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. He opened his eyes blearily and found his vision more obscured by the pale faces of Scott and Jubilee.

“Thank God,” said Scott.

“Are you okay?” urged Jubilee, checking his pulse with fluttering fingers.

“I’m pretty sure he’s alive, Jubilee.”

“Shut up. I’m just making sure it’s normal.”

“I have a headache,” said Kurt pointedly, which successfully stalled their bickering for a brief period. He moved to sit up, and they scrambled to help, pulling him into a relatively vertical position. Kurt looked around. They were in what appeared to be a glorified shed, old gardening equipment lining the walls and the floor covered in dirt and straw. There was a lumpy mound piled with blankets in the opposite corner, and Storm was sat beside it, her head leaning back against the wall as she slept.

“Jean,” said Kurt suddenly, feeling his chest tighten. “Where is Jean? Is she all right?”

“She’s asleep,” said Scott quietly, jerking his head towards the mound next to Storm. “She’s okay. She was shot in the shoulder, through and though. We cleaned it – or well, Storm did, and bandaged it and everything. I mostly just hovered.” He smiled tiredly. “She woke up before you did. Might have a concussion, among other things, but she’s okay for the time being, so we’re rolling with that.”

He looked drained, Kurt thought, exactly like he’d been up the whole night – now day - worrying. He sat up a little straighter, and tried to look marginally alert, for Scott’s sake. And Jubilee’s. She was wringing her hands and glancing nervously at the door of the shed intermittently.

“I never thought this place would have had a first-aid kit,” admitted Kurt, his tone light. In truth, he was so relieved he felt overwhelmed by it. Had it been understocked – for a _shed_ – Jean might have bled out.

“Where is here, anyway?” asked Scott. “We had a look around outside. There’s only trees and fields.” He put a hand to his forehead. “Oh my god. Are we in Germany?”

“What? No, of course not!” exclaimed Kurt, and Scott and Jubilee’s shoulders sagged in relief. “You vastly overestimate my abilities, guys.”

“Where, then?”

Kurt got shakily to his feet, supported by the other two. He looked around at the dingy architecture, the mould in the corners of the ceiling and the cobwebs swaying slowly over their heads. It looked worse than the first time he’d seen it, and yet a hundred times better.

“I was exploring the mansion’s grounds a while back,” he said, running a hand along the half-rotted walls. “I found this place, covered in ivy – you almost couldn’t see it from the forest path for the weeds. Turns out it functioned as storage for the Xaviers’ groundskeepers, built last century. It fell into disuse after the forties, and I guess nobody thought to demolish it. At least the way Hank tells it. He must have put supplies in here at some stage.”

Jubilee was gazing around, looking impressed, while Scott seemed dubious.

“It’s a part of the school?”

“Sort of,” replied Kurt. “We’re about a mile from the house. It was the first place I thought of that no-one would think to look.”

Scott was still watching him, shaking his head. “That’s incredible,” he said. “God damn.”

Kurt grinned, feeling heat rise in his cheeks. “It was nothing, honestly,” he mumbled.

There was a groan from the corner, and they all turned towards it. Jean was either having another nightmare or feeling the pain from the gunshot even while unconscious.

“We need to contact the Professor,” said Scott firmly. “None of us has our communicators, they’re all back at the mansion.”

“You’re not suggesting we go back there,” said Kurt blankly. Scott grimaced.

“We don’t know that they’ve taken it over. Maybe they’ve gone.”

“Or they’ve planted shrapnel bombs behind the blackboards,” said Jubilee darkly. “How did they get in, anyway? It’s a high-tech place, I thought there would have been safeguards against a bunch of humans, at the very least.”

Kurt felt something unpleasant roil in his stomach. He remembered the night before, taking a breezy walk in the moonlight while the others complained about going to bed. He’d promised to lock the place up.

He _had_ locked the place up. He’d turned a key and pressed some buttons, and given up when he spotted a second, more complicated panel underneath the main controls…

“Um,” he said, his tail flashing in and out of his peripheral vision. “Um, I think, possibly, maybe that might have been me?”

Scott and Jubilee were staring at him, their faces stony, and he wanted to sink into the ground.

“You never locked up?”

“I did! I mean, I thought I did, I must not have – done it properly - ,”

Jubilee sighed and Scott put his hands on his hips, pacing up and down the 200 square feet of the shed.

“Well it’s done now,” Scott said flatly. “What we have to focus on is getting it back. Hopefully before Xavier comes home and kills us all himself.”

“How?” muttered Jubilee.

“I can get them,” piped up Kurt, slight desperation building in him at the idea that he could solve their problem himself. “It’ll take five minutes!”

“You can’t go alone,” said Scott grimly. Jubilee smirked beside him, and stepped forward, raising her hand mockingly.

“I guess it’s me and you, Kurt. I finally get to be part of the team.”

Someone yawned, interrupting Kurt and Scott’s weak arguments that Jubilee was already part of the X-Men, technically. They turned to see Storm stretching and pulling herself to her feet.

“What’s happening?”

“Kurt and I are going to get our communicators from the mansion.”

Storm’s expression darkened. “That’s a good way to get murdered.” She chewed her lip and inspected the lightly breathing mound beside her, nodding to herself.

“I’ve decided I will go with you,” she said. “To ensure nobody actually does die this time round.”

Scott ran his fingers through his hair with an exasperated sigh and went to sit by Jean. He drew his knees up to his chest, looking very young all of a sudden.

“I don’t suppose we can wait for check-in tonight?” he inquired warily. “They’ll know something’s wrong. The jet would be back in a couple hours.”

“Those psychos might have torn up the school by then, or found the lower levels,” said Jubilee. “I wasn’t kidding when I mentioned the bombs, you know. And Peter’s not here this time to whisk us all away from an explosion.”

Scott’s mouth became a thin line and he turned away, wrapping his arms tighter around his legs. Jubilee didn’t seem to understand why, so Kurt simply rested a hand on her shoulder and held the other out for Storm.

“We’ll be back in a little while, Scott,” said Kurt softly. “Just watch over Jean. It will be okay.”

He waited until Scott had given him a brisk nod before disappearing with a _bamf_ , the sound of air rushing to fill the spot they’d vacated filling his ears like water.

 

*

 

They emerged in the undergrowth just outside the walls of the back yard, and were greeted with a high-pitched squeak as Storm landed face-first in a giant cobweb.

Jubilee snickered as Storm fought off a few undoubtedly scandalised spiders, stopping at the sight of Kurt’s reproving glare.

“What?”

“You didn’t have to say that stuff about the bomb,” said Kurt quietly, ensuring their heads were completely hidden behind the brick wall.

“What stuff? I was only – oh. Oh. His brother.”

Kurt rubbed his neck. “Yeah.”

“Shit. I didn’t mean – I didn’t even think.”

Kurt’s mouth twisted unhappily as he swatted at Storm to make her calm down, the bracken and brush around them loudly disturbed by her flailing.

“Just. Try to remember. For next time. It wasn’t that long ago.”

“He never talks about it,” murmured Jubilee, as Storm shook spiders out of her hair, her shoulders drawn up almost to her ears.

“So we probably shouldn’t either.” Kurt paused in his assessment of their makeshift surveillance camp, his ears perking up. “Shush. I hear something!”

Voices, gruff and bored, floated towards them on the breeze. Kurt mouthed at the other two to stay down, and poked his head over the wall, up to the bridge of his nose. They were a good distance from anyone, the nearest being two men, the sources of the conversation. They were leaning against a truck, one of many, brandishing beer cans and discussing the mansion.

“… Just a school,” one of them was saying. “An actual school, I mean, who saw that coming?” He took a swig of his beer.

“Fuckin’ weird shit goin’ on in there either way,” said the other, crushing a can under his boot and kicking it onto the lawn. “Goddamn freaks bein’ taught by other goddamn freaks. Glad we rooted ‘em out.”

“Did we? Thought it was empty.”

“Nah,” said the second man, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Fred shot one of ‘em last night. Apparently. Then another one took it – and scarpered. So he says.”

The first speaker made a disbelieving noise. “So Fred says he shot something, and it’s nowhere to be found. Well. It wouldn’t be the first time, eh?”

They started chuckling, and someone yelled for them from the other side of the mansion. They followed in the direction of the command, and Kurt sank back behind the wall. Jubilee and Storm were waiting for him expectantly.

“You hear that?”

Storm slapped a mosquito against her thigh and gave him a withering look.

“Humans hating mutants. What else is new. We still need our home back.”

Kurt glanced at Jubilee, whose lips twitched in response.

“Okay. How do we do that? There are people crawling all over the mansion.” Kurt’s foot began to tap against the ground restlessly, a sense of growing hopelessness rising inside him. Jubilee gave his shoulder a light punch.

“You do what you set out to do. Get the communicators. Storm, go with him.”

Storm and Kurt stared at her.

“What are you going to do?” Storm questioned, her eyebrow raised.

“What I do best,” said Jubilee sweetly. “Create a distraction.”

 

*

 

Cries of horror and surprise signalled Jubilee’s plan had sprang into action. Kurt and Storm disappeared into thin air and reappeared fifty feet away in Professor Xavier’s office. It was, mercifully, deserted.

“Hurry,” whispered Storm, as multi-coloured fireworks outside the tall windows turned the floor into that of a discotheque. Kurt riffled through drawers and cabinets, feeling only slightly guilty about breaching the Professor’s boundaries. It was mostly books and papers in there anyway, and one trinket box with a latch that housed four yellow bottles of pills that Kurt returned to their place with a wince.

After several minutes the fireworks had slowed to sparks, and there were still no communicators. Storm swore in a vein that strongly echoed Scott.

“Where are they?” she said urgently, and Kurt threw up his hands. “The emergency ones were supposed to be in here – oh _hell_.” She approached Kurt and grabbed his hand.

“The basement,” she said. “Outside the Danger Room, there’s a compartment for the field equipment. We never took them out of it.”

Kurt obliged, closing his eyes and opening them three floors down, in a hallway lined with sleek chrome. The door to Cerebro glinted at them from one end, and a door marked with another, smaller ‘X’ waited a few feet down from them, embedded in the wall.

“Bingo,” said Kurt.

They spent a good five minutes trading combination suggestions between them before Storm landed on Mystique’s birthday, and entered it in successfully. Xavier, it transpired, while riotously intelligent and sharp-witted, still had the password transparency of anyone else his age. It provided quite a lot of comfort to Kurt, and a great deal of concern. Old people, he thought derisively, and with a jolt felt glad there weren’t any telepaths around.

While Storm was gathering the communicators, devices that resembled calculators but were considerably more useful, Kurt kept his eye trained on the elevator and listened for any hints of intrusion. It was completely silent.

“Storm,” he said warningly, and she looked up in confusion, her arms full of tech.

“What?”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“That’s good, right?” She pressed a button embedded in the wall and the panels over the locker slid shut with a hiss.

“No. We should be hearing Jubilee’s fireworks.”

Storm’s spine snapped straight, and she reached out to Kurt at the same moment he did to her; both of them disappearing with one of Kurt’s patented _bamfs_.

They stumbled out of nothingness into the Professor’s office again, and dashed to the window, which was full of a plain grey sky. People were running about on the lawn, jumping into trucks and shouting at one another. Several crashes and bellows from downstairs told them they weren’t alone inside, either. They watched as a parade of vehicles rumbled out the driveway, one of the mansion’s gates hanging off a hinge. The high walls of the grounds had been decorated with more vulgarity since they’d left the night before, and empty cans and food wrappers littered the lawn, crunched under wheels as their owners departed. It was a mess, but there were no bodies, so Kurt was willing to pursue optimism rather than despair. The issue of a hidden bomb remained, but then these were disgruntled hicks, not government agents. It didn’t say much about their security _or_ the pedigree of their enemies, in hindsight.

“Where are they going?” Storm wondered aloud.

“I don’t know.” Kurt was gripping the window ledge too tightly, his knuckles the colour of a summer sky. “We need to find Jubilee.”

“How?” said Storm, panic creeping into her voice. Kurt didn’t know, and he was getting antsier the more questions put to him. He knew it wasn’t Storm’s fault, but her fear was infectious.

“There are still people here,” he said to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll go to the rendezvous point.”

“She was further away than that.”

“We may as well try,” he insisted, and she agreed with an incline of her head.

 

*

 

Jubilee was hidden behind the wall they’d appeared behind upon first returning to the mansion, drenched in sweat and with her hair in disarray. She was brushing mud ineffectually from her legs and shorts when Storm and Kurt burst into being directly in front of her. She yelped and tripped backwards into an overgrown gorse bush.

“Thank fuck, you’re okay,” said Storm at once, and Jubilee responded by pelting her with twigs and chips of bark.

“I _ran_ while showering those assholes with every trick I had,” she said crossly, getting to her feet in a decidedly ungainly way. “Do you know how many fireworks it takes to distract forty-two people?”

“There were forty-two of them?” gasped Kurt, his tail hanging limp. “What were they doing?”

“Trashing the place,” said Jubilee grimly, as Storm plucked an entire dandelion from her hair. “They were drunk, mostly, spouting the same old pseudo-Christian rhetoric about human purity. Probably never thought they’d actually get inside, and now they’re delighted with themselves.”

“Glad the upper storeys were locked more securely than the damn front door,” growled Storm, and Kurt fidgeted, not meeting her eyes. “They shoot at you?”

“For sure. But like I said, I’m exceptionally distracting.” Jubilee beamed.

“They’re probably looking for you, now they know there’s a mutant escaped – or more than one,” said Storm. “We should get back to Scott and Jean. And call the Professor. Boy, that’ll be a fun conversation.”

“We’re never going to have that pool party weekend sans adult supervision, are we?” said Jubilee sadly, slipping her small hand into Kurt’s.

“Please,” said Storm, picking up a fallen communicator and cuddling them all to her chest. “After these shenanigans we’re not going to be allowed in groups of five without at least two blue people present.”

“Reasonable,” said Kurt, and disappeared yet again, startling a nearby crow something awful.

 

*

 

In Kurt’s mind, it wasn’t necessarily the events themselves that were wearisome and gruelling so much as the drama of it all. It was as though God, in his infinite wisdom, had pondered upon the existence of Kurt Wagner and declared him the recipient of a life and appearance so theatrical it would haunt him in every waking moment.

“What in the fuck,” said the skinny kid with a rifle, “are you, man?”

“Don’t talk to it Derrick,” snapped his companion, whose clunky gun was aimed squarely at Kurt’s face. “It’ll control your fuckin’ mind with its freaky powers.”

“You cannot be serious,” said Storm under her breath. All three of them had their hands raised in surrender after appearing in the shed, not daring to move. The communicators had been set down somewhere to their right, clearly intimidating everyone present who didn’t know their particular function.

Kurt wasn’t looking at their assailants, but rather Scott, who was braced in front of Jean like a shield, his arms spread either side of him in defiance. Jean was awake but incredibly weak, her eyelids drooping as she clung to Scott’s arm. The linen bandages across her chest and shoulder leaked a red so bright it barely looked like blood, and her hair snaked down her neck in dark curves, her skin glistening with sweat.

“You’re all m-mutants?” queried the aforementioned Derrick, his mullet as bouffant and unkempt as his eyebrows. His friend glared at him resentfully.

“What answer will get you to put down the gun?” Jubilee retorted, keeping her voice light. Derrick didn’t seem to appreciate it in any case, hefting said gun a little higher, his eyes narrowing.

“You just came outta nowhere,” Derrick’s friend chimed in, elbowing Derrick to the side as he got a proper look at the newcomers. “You all like that?”

“Put down the gun, and we will tell you,” said Kurt evenly. Derrick’s friend’s eyes went as round as dinner plates and the finger he had stroking the trigger of his gun stilled.

“A fuckin’ Jerry.  Derrick, you hearin’ this? A fuckin’ Kraut motherfucker, with a _tail_ , that’s _fuckin’ blue_ – Lenny ain’t gonna believe this, man.”

“Shut up Ryan,” Derrick complained. “You said not to talk to ‘em.”

“I’m not, dipshit, I was talkin’ to you.”

Derrick processed this for a second. “Well, you _were_ talkin’ to ‘em,” he said, seemingly proud of coming to this conclusion. Jubilee made a noise between a snort and a groan, and just like that, they had the full attention of the gunmen again, their postures predatory.

“I bet we can make a blue sofa outta this Kraut,” said Ryan smoothly. “Whatcha think, Derrick?”

“I think that sounds gnarly, Ryan. And kinda gross.”

Ryan had opened his mouth to make another riveting comment, and Kurt caught sight of Scott’s head turning towards them, mouthing something incomprehensible. He looked afraid. And he was too far away for Kurt to get to before someone got riddled with bullets.

“Chit-chatting there, boys?” Ryan had drawn closer, while Derrick aimed his rifle at Scott, looking peeved.

“No,” said Kurt. His voice sounded reedy in his ears, and he was close enough to Jubilee that he could feel her trembling. Ryan, and more significantly Ryan’s sour odour were right in front of Kurt. He could have grabbed the barrel of the gun, if he didn’t mind a crater where his heart should have been.

“You’re all goin’ to hell,” said Ryan, in such a way that it was almost gentle. A nun had said something similar to Kurt when he was eleven, so kindly that he had believed her for a long time. He had believed enough to take a knife to his own face in the hope God would read the carven sigils and save his soul from damnation in such a hideous vessel.

“Says who?” Kurt replied coldly.

“The Church of Humanity,” said Ryan without missing a beat. “Didn’t you read our banners yesterday? Mutants are tearing up the world. We’re protectin’ it.”

“By killing unarmed teenagers,” said Kurt.

“Well,” said Ryan, “Yeah. Now, you interrupted us, so help out. Who’ll we kill first? The cute dying one?” he flicked his gaze to Jean. “Or the asshole who wears shades inside? That’s a punishable offence no matter who you are, honestly.”

A muscle jumped in Scott’s jaw, Derrick’s rifle inches from his head. Kurt felt anger coiling in the pit of his belly, his tail drifting back and forth behind him. It was going to be ugly, but there was no way he was letting two backwoods morons with a skewed version of religion hurt his friends. They hadn’t taken out a four thousand year old super-being to die this way.

“Jubilee,” said Kurt, “remember what you said you were exceptional at?”

Ryan’s brows drew together, glancing confusedly between them. “Huh?”

“Yeah,” said Jubilee. “I do.”

“NOW,” he barked, and disappeared in a cloud of darkness, reappearing directly behind Derrick and jerking his arm to the side, sawdust showering Scott and Jean as a bullet lodged in the wall next to them. Pink and orange and gold sparks filled the shed, as did Ryan’s roars of terror; Kurt _bamfed_ over the meadow half a mile from the shed and dropped Derrick from fifteen feet above, disappearing along with the rifle before his toes had even touched the grass.

Back in the half-scorched shed, Scott had Ryan in a headlock, Jubilee kicking out his knees while Storm held his firearm aloft in distaste.

“Fuckers!” he screamed, clawing at Scott’s arm. “The Church’s gonna cut you fuckers down, just wait - ,” Scott flexed and Ryan’s windpipe closed, his eyes bulging. They watched as veins popped in his forehead and his legs motored under him, and then he fell unconscious, his head lolling. Scott dropped him unceremoniously.

“Guys,” rasped Jean from the corner, bags under her eyes and her face pale as the moon. “Guys, there’s people coming. There’s a lot of people coming.” She started to cough.

Kurt didn’t even need to speak; he loped towards Jean in tandem with the others, taking her hand carefully in his right and Scott’s in his left. Jubilee curled a hand around his tail and Storm took his elbow. He could have sworn he heard the old wooden door creak open as the shed retreated into a pinprick behind them, space rushing past like they were travelling through a black tunnel.

 

*

 

“Three days.”

Scott was the only one to meet Xavier’s eyes. Kurt thought he was doing it just to be ballsy.

“We left you alone for three. Days.”

“Professor,” implored Jean, flapping her arm in the sling uselessly. “We didn’t actually doing anything wrong.”

“The broken locks and abandoned alarms would disagree with you, Jean.”

All five of them quailed a little at that. At first they’d refused to give up who had left the security measures off by accident, but Kurt was godly, after all, and he wouldn’t lie to the man who had taken him in off the street. Xavier hadn’t even looked mad at the confession, merely impassive.  Somehow that was worse.

Xavier kneaded his brow and exchanged a look with Mystique, whose expression had been severe enough for the both of them.

“You’ll help with the clean-up.”

Kurt and the others nodded instantly, and more than one of them exhaled in relief.

“I’ll take care of this… ‘Church of Humanity’,” murmured Xavier. “At least enough so they won’t come near the school again. After that… well, I don’t know how far this organisation goes.”

“Another group of mutant-haters,” said Mystique tonelessly. “They’re all the same. This one just has a name.”

“And guns,” interjected Kurt, shutting his mouth abruptly when Mystique’s cool gaze landed on him.

“The boy’s right,” Xavier said to her, rolling out from behind his desk. “These people are becoming militant. We can’t ignore them any longer.”

“Ooh good,” said Jubilee. “Are we taking them out, Professor?”

Xavier made what sounded like an aborted laugh at the back of his throat. “Not exactly,” he admitted. “But we are making defence and vigilance our priority. Our enemies are not gods and monsters any longer, not necessarily. No; now we must check under our beds for danger. In our back gardens.” Xavier steered himself to overlook the front lawn. Workmen had already started to scrub the fountain clean and repair the broken windows.

“We must treat our neighbours with caution,” he said quietly, almost mildly. It belied the calm, icy fury lurking underneath, affecting the very air they breathed and raising goosebumps on their skin.

There was a brief silence, and Xavier swivelled around to offer them a thin smile. “Off you go and help with the reparations,” he said. “Jean, take it easy with the arm.”

They were filing out of the office when Kurt heard his name being called from within. He gave Scott his most nonchalant shrug.

“I’ll meet you down there,” he said.

Xavier was by the window again, but gave Kurt his full attention once the others had left.

“Kurt. It is my understanding that you performed quite extraordinarily well under such a violent threat this weekend.”

Kurt didn’t know what to say.

“Well,” he said uncertainly, “it was my fault any of it happened.”

Xavier granted him a serious look, which he felt weigh on him like something physical.

“You didn’t attack the school, armed with weapons,” said Xavier earnestly. “You did, however, save your friends from fanatics with little regard to your own wellbeing.”

“Your squad can certainly spin a yarn,” added Mystique, her eyes like shards of amber.

Kurt felt warmth well inside him at the thought of the others defending him for his mistake.

“I guess the lessons in the Danger Room must be making an impression,” he said shyly. “Having my team’s six has become sort of a habit.”

“Good,” said Mystique. Xavier just shook his head, a rare smile splitting his face like a sunrise.

“Go help your friends, Kurt.”

Kurt left with a salute, and didn’t think of it as being too much until he told Scott and Jubilee later, and they broke into peals of laughter, clapping him on the back and calling him ‘lieutenant’ for the rest of the day. Kurt didn’t mind in the slightest.

**Author's Note:**

> \- The Church of Humanity is a canon group based on Christian ideals that opposes the X-Men in the comics. 
> 
> \- The phrase "Let's Make America Great Again!" was the campaign slogan of U.S. Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election, and he was president at the same time as the film's events. I found it interesting that it has since surfaced in the 2016 election. I figured I would include similar dark connections between the modern use of the slogan and xenophobia.
> 
> \- "Gott sei Dank" translates to "Thank God" or "Thank Goodness" in German.
> 
> \- Title is, of course, stolen from Deadpool's credits.


End file.
